S&P 500 Boards Paid $1.7 Billion in ‘Special’ Awards Last Year, Up 50% — and the One-Offs Are Becoming the Pattern

Theo Francis’s analysis for the Journal finds nearly half of S&P 500 companies have handed out a one-time award in two years, and a quarter have done it more than once. ‘Special’ is now a line item — and the proxy is where you find it.

By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, whose market figures are the Monday, October 5 close (Business & Finance)

Key Points

S&P 500 companies paid $1.7 billion in special awards last year, up 50% from a year earlier, per a Journal analysis of Equilar data; nearly half made at least one in two years, and a quarter made several.
Median S&P 500 CEO pay reached $17.9 million, up from $11 million a decade earlier; Equilar’s Courtney Yu says many of the highest-paid got there on a one-time grant. Turnover drives it: 67 S&P 500 leaders departed in 2025, up 29% from 2023, and 36 left in the first half of 2026.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) reported $165 million for David Zaslav last year, $110 million of it a June 2025 option grant tied to a new contract; he’s received about $111 million so far and stands to collect the remaining roughly $366 million when Paramount’s acquisition closes next week.
CrowdStrike (CRWD) gave George Kurtz a $188 million special award in December, worth up to $290 million at that valuation if return hurdles are met through 2028. The outlier the Journal excluded from its totals: Elon Musk’s $132 billion Tesla (TSLA) award in November.
Retention pay doesn’t always retain. Nike’s (NKE) then-CFO Matthew Friend got a $3.3 million stay award, then left with $6 million in severance — and likely keeps about $1.2 million of the retention shares for having stayed long enough. T. Rowe Price and ISS both flag routine one-offs.

$1.7B

special awards at S&P 500 companies last year, up 50%

$17.9M

median S&P 500 CEO pay last year; $11 million a decade earlier

$132B

Musk’s Tesla award in November, excluded from the Journal’s totals

$1.2M

retention shares Nike’s departed CFO likely keeps

An empty dark-walnut boardroom table lined with leather chairs under black pendant lamps, a thick bound document and pen at the near end, as late-afternoon sun lights a skyline beyond floor-to-ceiling windows.

Nearly half of S&P 500 companies have made a one-time award in the past two years; a quarter have made more than one.

In one line: One-time executive awards hit $1.7 billion at S&P 500 companies, up 50% — ‘special’ has become a pattern, and the place a shareholder catches it is the proxy, not the headline pay number.

Theo Francis opens his piece in Tuesday’s Journal with a line that could serve as an epitaph for a certain kind of board: “Special executive payouts aren’t so special anymore.” He’s got the data. S&P 500 companies handed out $1.7 billion in one-time awards last year, up 50% from the year before, according to a Journal analysis of Equilar figures. Nearly half the index has made at least one such award in the past two years; a quarter have made more than one. Some executives — Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) David Zaslav, Cisco’s (CSCO) Chuck Robbins — got them back to back, which rather strains the word special.

The awards do a lot of lifting. Median S&P 500 CEO pay reached $17.9 million last year, from $11 million a decade earlier, and Equilar’s Courtney Yu says the names at the top of the list tend to get there on a one-time grant in a given year. Boards cite turnover: 67 S&P 500 leaders left in 2025, up 29% from 2023, and 36 more departed in the first half of this year. Pay consultant Blair Jones summed up the boardroom mood — “They’re feeling the heat and they’re feeling the urgency.” Investors see it differently. T. Rowe Price’s proxy-voting guidelines file special equity awards under pay practices it regards as outdated or likely to pull executives’ interests away from shareholders’, and ISS says it heard “loud and clear” that one-offs shouldn’t become a pattern.

Three case files

Zaslav’s $165 million for last year made him the fifth-highest-paid CEO in the Journal’s ranking; $110 million of it was a June 2025 option grant for signing a new contract, on top of $29 million in salary and bonus. He’s collected about $111 million so far and is in line for the remaining roughly $366 million when Paramount Skydance (PSKY) closes its acquisition next week — Warner’s stock has tripled since March 2025. CrowdStrike (CRWD) gave co-founder George Kurtz a $188 million special award in late December that could reach $290 million at that valuation if shareholder-return hurdles are met through 2028, or nothing if they aren’t; the shares have more than doubled since. And Nike (NKE) paid $35 million in special awards to five executives, including $4.1 million to then-CFO Matthew Friend, who also had a $3.3 million retention award from the prior year. He left in September with $6 million in cash severance and, by the Journal’s reckoning, keeps some $1.2 million of the retention shares for having stayed long enough. The elephant, excluded from the totals: Elon Musk’s $132 billion Tesla (TSLA) award in November.

Our read

This is an Investments/Risk (IN04) story for anyone who owns individual stocks, with a Career footnote. The shareholder problem with one-offs isn’t the size; it’s that they sit outside the long-term plan that’s supposed to pay nothing when performance is poor. A board that grants a special award every year has quietly built a second pay plan with no downside. Where it shows isn’t the headline pay figure but the proxy — the footnotes to the compensation table and the grants section, where the words special, supplemental, retention and one-time do the work. Of the names here, CrowdStrike is held in 20 books, Tesla in 13, Nike in 1 and Cisco in 2, all at weight; nothing added or sold on a pay story. Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t owned. A pay plan is a governance input, not a trading signal.

The Career footnote is Friend’s. If you’re ever offered a retention award, read the vesting schedule and the leaver terms before you read the number — Nike’s CFO kept about $1.2 million by staying past a vesting date, and half his award hung on a $100 share price that never held. The same discipline applies to your own equity comp, and most people never look. Bring the grant agreement to the next review; the time to know what you’d walk away from is before anyone asks you to.

What It Means For Your Portfolio

Hold — read the proxy footnotes, not the headline number

No portfolio action — CrowdStrike, Tesla, Nike and Cisco are held at weight and Warner isn’t owned; the lesson is to read a company’s one-time awards as a governance signal in the proxy, not a trading one.

General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. For the individual stocks you own, open the annual proxy once a year and search for special, supplemental, retention and one-time; note whether the board has done it two years running and whether the award carries performance hurdles or just a calendar. Repeated one-offs are a reason to vote your proxy and to question concentration, not to trade.

For your own compensation, map every unvested grant and retention award to its vesting dates and leaver terms, and know the number you’d forfeit by leaving in any given month; it belongs in the plan alongside the 401(k).